The lessons develop critical reading skills, invite shared discussion, and provide the opportunity for pupils to develop their own writing skills.

They also provide ideas for discussing the difference between explicit and implicit points of view, and the differences between first and third person narration.

Nelson Mandela wanted the people in South Africa to be free from apartheid. He hated that black South Africans lived in poverty and could not vote in elections. While many others felt that ending apartheid was an impossible challenge, Nelson Mandela did not give up. Mandela spent 27 years of his life in prison. When he was finally released, he helped turn the impossibility of ending apartheid into a reality.

Tell students that the South African government responded to every attempt to oppose the system of apartheid with increased repression and violence, therefore resistance movements decided to take up arms in the struggle. Students should individually identify a national, state or local problem that they could try to change.